Tarnished
by Seadragon
Summary: Things are different now, very different. As one man sits in the armory, he remembers the way things used to be, and how he is partly responsible for changing them.


**Title: **Tarnished****

**Author:** Seadragon

**Limitations:**

- Alex/Thayet is the pairing

- Dirt must be in the first sentence

- The Dancing Dove must be mentioned

**Words:** 1134

**Summary:** Things are different now, very different. As one man sits in the armory, he remembers the way things used to be, and how he is partly responsible for changeing them.

- - - - -

I lifted my sword to inspect it; I had spent the last hour scrubbing all the dirt off the blade. I couldn't become the best swordsman at court with a filthy weapon. It was a task that I enjoyed, repetitive, and simple. I was able to just sit and think for hours on end, and provide no better excuse then that I was cleaning my weapons. It gave me time to find a way that I could show the entire court that I was the single best swordsman in the land. The way had been cleared for me in the past months, I had only to prove myself.

I had rid myself of that pesky Champion of Jon's in the confusion that surrounded the Coronation. Roger had, of course, become King, and I had become his Champion.

How strange those words seem. That _I_ should be anyone's champion. It is so perfectly ironic that a person other than myself would feel compelled to laugh. Thankfully, I am above that.

But to be a champion, you had to be everything I wasn't. A champion must do things for the good of the nation, the good of the people. Frankly, I could care less about them. A champion must be just and honest. I couldn't be further from these qualities if I dared to try.

A champion must be pure of heart, and courageous. And I suppose someone like that hunts their greatest adversary in shadowy corners when the rest of the world is too occupied to notice. Pure of heart, the words loose all meaning in comparison to me, my heart is darker then the Lioness's blood.

As it is, I am no champion. If you must label me, most would call me a traitor. Now there is a role I play well. I as good as killed my best friends, I did kill one of them. I helped to plot the overthrow of a nation, and took the part of right hand man to the man who had killed his younger cousin, in a moment of helplessness, and many others, just to become king.

That I should be so closely associated with such a person denies me any chance of ever being able to be a true champion. It's not as though I want that anymore, I am content with what I have, and what I have lost. It is a painless world for me.

At least, it _was_.

There is one exception to all of the above. One person who does not see me as a traitor to my friends, but a traitor to my king. A traitor to Roger. She, who was kept above all others as a prize, sees me, her captor if you will, as her savior.

She doesn't see that it is beyond my power to free her, beyond my power to save her. And I suppose she never will see it that way, not so long as both of us are alive. You lose all sense of rationality when you are imprisoned, any one with a kind face seems like your best friend, anyone with pretty words seems like your only chance.

I cannot say I do not feel remorseful about deceiving her, day after day. Indeed, it is one of the few human emotions I experience. I wonder if this is how Roger feels, returned from the dead. I suppose it is, for I feel only half alive. And he is only half dead.

That may also be the way she feels, cooped up in her cell. If you do not know the taste of freedom, you may as well be dead, for there really is nothing to live for. The only thing that matters then is time, and there is often too little of that to go around. For people like Roger, there is more than enough time, he has all of eternity to complete whatever mission he is on.

For Thayet, there is too little time. She doesn't even have enough to live properly. She knows as well as I that what time she has is limited. As soon as Roger tires of her, that could may well be the end of the line for her. And if not, if he decides to put her to some use in labor camps, she would be dead within eight years.

I suppose I should feel sorrow for this. It is one of the emotions that elude me still. For I use her as well, I use her for my own petty needs, and I could discard her easily, and with little heartache if need be. The remorse I feel is connected to my betrayal of the human heart. I've done it before, and I'll do it again, but that brings it no closer to right.

Not much I do nowadays is right. Come to think of it, I haven't done something purely good since I was a page, a best friend to the prince. It has all been down hill since then.

Of the less than nice things I have done in the past, slaying the Lioness seems the worst to me. She was a real champion, everything I am not, and never will be. If I cast my mind far enough back, I can almost remember the time I spent with them, laughing, joking. I can remember the tangy smell of the Dancing Dove, and the clear waters of the pond that Alanna, or Alan as we knew her, would never venture into.

And if I'm not careful, I can also miss those relatively lighthearted days, were we were free to just be children. But we grew up much too fast. We became what we were destined to be.

Jon became King, or nearly, Gary became Prime Minister, Raoul was to lead the King's Own, Alanna was the King's Champion, the ultimate weapon. And I became a cold blooded killer.

Wrenching my mind away from such thoughts, I continued to scrub away at my sword. But I knew now, had realized, that no sword of mine would ever be clean, but tarnished by the blood of my friends.

And as a scream from the executioner's yard pierces the air, and the birds nested nearby take flight, I know I am doomed to suffer these revelations alone. And I will be slave to them for eternity.

For it is not only my sword that has been tarnished, but my soul.


End file.
